Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Doesn't the above shoe remind you of Italian Rainbow Cookies? Recognize the shoe?  Well it ain't Jeffrey Campbell!  The one below however is:

The shoe in the first photograph was originally designed by Salvatore Ferragamo in 1938 created for Judy Garland. They are pretty iconic and are a fixture in most fashion history books.  The shoes were reissued in 2010 as a limited edition.  So I was very surprised and excited to see these on solestruck.com as part of Jeffrey Campbell's new line or should I say "new". 

The Jeffrey Campbell version is apropriately titled "Salvatore" and retails for $185.  A pretty penny,  but considering the odds of owning the original 1938 version are the same as finding a vintage Birkin for $2 at the Goodwill, I definitely feel it's something worth snatching up while you have the chance (speaking of which they are already sold out on solestruck!).

Having been born in the 70s and an adolescent during the 90s I have a fondness for chunky shoes, be it Docs or platforms,and the more sculptural the better.  So Jeffrey Campbell has me in a pretty bad state of want with his Ferragamo and 1970s knock-offs.  If I bought any it would be in a shameless attempt to pass them off as vintage.



Meditative Vintage

Yes I did get the memo about color and pattern being hot for Spring/Summer but really I wanted to put the shop into a meditative state first.... breathe it in deeply....relaxing isn't it?  Besides for a gal that wears a lot of black, creams and taupe are pretty bold colors for me...I mean to actually reflect light this summer instead of absorb it?  It's kind of a nutty concept to me.

Everything here and then some can be found here.

The Bears and the Bees

A hive of bees and a sleuth of bears hungry for honey...doesn't look as if it's going to end very well for the bears. The 1970s came out with some great graphic sweaters and I've had the good fortune of finding quite a bit of them lately.  This particular one coming to the shop soon.

Double Take

The Church of Vintage

Oscar de la Renta Fall 2010

 

The first coat is a coat I sold last year, beautiful awe evoking 1960s w/ fox trimmed hem. So I was really amused when I saw the second coat from Oscar de la Renta's Fall 2010 collection. Don't you just love when the present catches up to the past?

Dining Room Or Just Another Closet

I love seeing behind the scenes of fellow Etsy seller's workspaces, it's like the rough draft of the actual store, a before and after if you will. I can look at those types of photos all day, especially when there is vintage in them.

 So the other day I was inspired to share a photo of my dining room(or lack there of) after Lauren of Dear Golden  posted this photo of hers a few days ago on Twitter. Note how there is a dining room table visible in her photo, actually note how a table is actually IN the space, before looking at mine.  I am in compete awe of people who actually have dining rooms they can dine in.

The room in the photo is my stock room aka the vault aka vintage abyss aka the visual representation of a mental disorder.  OR what is was suppose to be the dining room.  There is still some deluded hope though that it may still one day be the dining room.  Of course the reality is vintage multiplies like rabbits. 

The room is very long and narrow (and FULL) so it's pretty much impossible to get a full shot of the room. Enjoy and mental health referrals are greatly appreciated.

wall to ceiling rack are very necessary

The wall of purses

Vintage Labrynth

Berkeley is Cool

No clue what Berkeley or Mickey Mouse have in common.  Even more so a menacing Mickey wearing an MC carrying a baseball bat with a spike in it.  But what is clear Mickey has got Berkeley's back so don't mess with Mickey or Berkeley.  I don't eally wear t-shirts but this speaks to my off beat sensibilities enough to make me want to keep it, well just for a little while at least;)

Windows and Shopping

For the last 4 weeks I think referring to "being busy" would be an understatement.  With Easter, weekly orthodontists, ex-husbands having babies, the twin's birthday, stomach viruses, cars being in the shop, running a shop, fathers coming to visit (who you haven't seen in four years), taxes, buying out an entire vintage store and then proceeding to catalogue all 1000 pieces....well I'm at the point where I just want to eat a whole box of animal crackers and stare at the wall.

Here are a few photos of my store windows, the theme is for Earth Day and presented below our my feeble skills at crafting dresses out of recycleable materials.  I don't know, I think I did pretty well considering I've never made a dress out of trash before.

The Atlantic City Press Dress       

                                                               The ShopRite Dress

And lastly here are a few shots of what a utility van full of vintage looks like.  If you want to see what the store looked like after I unloaded the van, please refer back to this post here.  But imagine it 10x worse.

Almost loaded.

Dresses, purses and shoes OH MY!

Interior shot from the passenger seat

Vintage Reading

I've been wanting to read  The Dud Avocado for quite a while and of course it's part of  an ever expanding list of books I want to read and because it's quite a list and time is such a luxury I let fate as you will decide when the time to read it will be by playing the Paperback Swap lottery. 

If you don't know what Paperback Swap is then you should check it out, basically it's free books, you can either swap books you have and don't want for book credits or just create a wish list and pay for shipping costs.  Thing is most of the time there is a waiting list, but that's fine by me at least once a month something from my list (I have like 200 books on it) comes up and today it just so happened that The Dud Avocado came up.  Can't wait to get my hands on it!

The book was written in 1958, if you haven't heard of it here is a blurb for it:

"The Dud Avocado follows the romantic and comedic adventures of a young American who heads overseas to conquer Paris in the late 1950s. Edith Wharton and Henry James wrote about the American girl abroad, but it was Elaine Dundy’s Sally Jay Gorce who told us what she was really thinking. Charming, sexy, and hilarious, The Dud Avocado gained instant cult status when it was first published and it remains a timeless portrait of a woman hell-bent on living.

“I had to tell someone how much I enjoyed The Dud Avocado. It made me laugh, scream, and guffaw (which, incidentally, is a great name for a law firm).” –Groucho Marx


"[The Dud Avocado] is one of the best novels about growing up fast..." -The Guardian"

I did it all for the GUCCI

My New Vintage Gucci (and photo) from PranceandSwagger

                                                                  The one that started it all!

I'm so tired of seeing this design

Like my new (old) Gucci? It's been my new fixation for the last two years ever since I got my hands on the 1960s monogrammed canvas cream colored Gucci bag. The second Gucci pictured was actually for sale in my store until a woman seemed very keen on it and the threat of it leaving my universe seemed eminent, I hadn't realized we were in a relationship until that moment and could not bare to part with it ever since.  The new bag will fit in quite beautifully I do think, a little polish and the new-old bag will be like new.

 Names like Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Coach and Gucci have always evoked this painfully romantic provenance of days gone by filled with a forgotten art of refined travel, probably because a lot of these companies started making luggage and saddles before they ever made purses. So when I see vintage of any of these labels I feel like I'm bringing a piece of that past to my present, not to mention I feel like hot shit when I carry it;P.  So of course when I saw the navy bag, I had to have it. Luckily no one really cares for this style, everyone is all about the equestrian line of Gucci which I guess is it's trademark and why it is so easily available, but does not appeal to me in the least.

Peepshoe

Oh my, I am so tired!! Just got back from my weekly vintage scouring trip to Atlanic City and made out pretty well. So those items will be showing up in the store sometime this week.

Anyway I got home just an hour ago which is pretty late for me, usually I'm home by 6pm in time for the babies dinner and bedtime routines, I usually make it a point to ALWAYS no matter how busy be there for them when they wake up and when they go to sleep, but I walked in the door 3 hrs after their bedtime and didn't get to see them off to the land of Nod, I'm so sad.

Reason for getting back so late was the new car we just got, I think today was the third time I drove it since we got it last week. Well it would seem I ran out of gas, and it happened while I driving and taking a sharp corner and it seems when this car runs out of gas the steering wheel locks up and everything just dies, I almost drove thru Wendy's , not the drive-thru mind you, DROVE THROUGH because I almost couldn't turn the wheel enough. And what get's me is I was aware that I needed to get gas, was on my way to get gas, was just TWO block away from the gas station(I mean it really was RIGHT THERE!!), the gas tank light on the dashboard wasn't even lit and the line was barely touching the red so I thought I was fine, wasn't even sweating that I might not make it, and then nothing in the middle of rush hour traffic and I had just came off a two lane bridge with no shoulder. How lucky and unlucky I was all at the same time! What DID come on was my battery light, totally confusing. Needless I did eventually make it home, I think this latest batch of vintage is hexed;) Did I say how tired I am?

So I'm not listing anything this evening my brain is out of gas. I'm not so eager to list the pair of Hermes Oxfords I have displayed like artwork in my bedroom(I can see them this very moment as I type) anyway. Oh they are so beautiful, it almost hurts, if we had only met when I was younger , like age 12 when I my foot was a 7-1/2, we could have had something. They look 1930s, but I think they are 1960s. And here is what I call shoe porn:

Last note** How I wish I could walk like Alexis Smith as she did as Winifred Stanley when she walked down the aisle in, Here Comes the Groom (which is finishing up on TCM right now).